National StreetPass Weekend Interview with Bill Trinen

Hear about this special 3DS event from Nintendo of America's Bill Trinen.

Nintendo's first-ever National StreetPass Weekend started (early) on Friday, Dec. 13 and continues through Sunday, Dec. 15. We had a rare opportunity to speak with NOA's own Bill Trinen, who told us more about this community event.

NWR: Thank you for having us. Let’s get a general
idea. How did the idea of StreetPass come about?

Bill: Well StreetPass originally actually dates
back to the original Nintendogs on Nintendo DS. The idea for it came from Mr.
Miyamoto’s experience as a dog owner. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a dog,
I’m a dog owner myself and can verify that this is very true. When you have a
dog and you take your dog on a walk you invariably encounter other dog owners and
because of the fact that you both have dogs you generally stop and talk to one
another and have a conversation with somebody or an encounter with somebody
that otherwise you might not have. So, he wanted to try to find a way to
replicate that dog walking experience in Nintendogs when they were working on
the game and the result was what, at the time, was called Tag Mode, but
essentially it served as a StreetPass connection in Nintendogs itself. Hideki
Konno was the producer on that game and when he was working on the 3DS hardware
he really wanted to take, what he thought, was a pretty unique feature and a
unique way to connect players together and integrate that into the 3DS hardware
itself. That was really where the 3DS StreetPass feature evolved from. In Japan
in particular on DS Nintendogs was a pretty popular kind of game that leveraged
that, but Dragon Quest IX is when it really took off and Konno-san, I think a
little bit out of jealousy, wanted to one up what Dragon Quest IX had been able
to achieve. So [he] integrated it into the Nintendo 3DS hardware.

NWR: Awesome. So, in Japan population tends to be
more condensed so people would be more often likely to run into somebody with a
3DS. When the 3DS first launched in the US were there any concerns about how
frequently StreetPass would be used?

Bill: I think what we saw pretty quickly after the
launch of Nintendo 3DS was the emergence of these grass roots StreetPass groups
that popped up all over the country in different cities. New York, Salt Lake
City, and Chicago there have been StreetPass groups all around, and those were
sort of Nintendo 3DS owners who had a sense for what the StreetPass feature
was. In order to facilitate their ability to be able to StreetPass started
having events where they would get together and StreetPass with one another.
They, obviously, had a lot of fun with that and have been great supporters of
StreetPass from very early on. We also did a fair bit of StreetPass activity on
our own as well and we’ve done it in a variety of different forms. The biggest
efforts that we’ve had up until the last several months had been really more
event focused. That was at places like PAX, the PAX Prime and PAX East shows,
in particular at San Diego Comic-Con and events like New York Comic-Con and
Wonder Con. Places where gamers were already going and congregating and as a
result of the sheer number of people going to those events really opened up the
opportunity for people to get a lot of StreetPass connections. Even early on we
noticed that things like PAX and even more on the industry side, E3 and GDC, we
found that often times you would just see people sitting in the aisles and
going through their StreetPass connections and clearing them out so that they
could get another batch. So then we started offering additional activity around
StreetPass at those events.

NWR: Awesome. So, you were mentioning the groups
that started up the StreetPass meet ups. I know that Nintendo has been reaching
out to several of these different StreetPass groups. How do you feel that
Nintendo views its relationship with these groups, and is there anything that
Nintendo plans to do to support or work with any of these specific groups
moving forward?

Bill: You know we’ve done some outreach in the
past when the 3DS first launched. A lot of what we did was try to point 3DS
owners in of the grass roots 3DS StreetPass groups so that they had an inkling
of where they could go to StreetPass. Some of the other activity that we also
did was around the launch of games like Kid Icarus: Uprising where we would
have multiplayer events at local GameStop stores and then we would sometimes
work with the StreetPass groups to also leverage those for additional
StreetPass opportunities for people. Then more recently, obviously we’ve put a
lot of focus on Nintendo Zone and the StreetPass relay points there, but
particularly with the upcoming National StreetPass weekend we’re also looking
to the StreetPass groups to gauge their interest in participating and reach out
to get more people to join. Simply because we do think that with National
StreetPass weekend it’s a great opportunity for people who haven’t really had a
chance to experience StreetPass on a large scale to come out and see what the
fun is all about.

NWR: If this StreetPass weekend would an
international StreetPass weekend be out of the question?

Bill: We’re definitely thinking big longer term.
We wanted to try it out this coming weekend. We picked this weekend for a
couple of reasons, one is that what we’ve found is that people tend to be more
open to trying to StreetPass when it’s already a part of their routine activity
and it’s just a matter of bringing the 3DS along with them. So we really looked
at the calendar and said that this upcoming weekend is really going to be a great
opportunity to catch people as they’re out and about doing some last minute
Christmas shopping or maybe going out to see the movies with a big opening like
the Hobbit coming up this weekend. Then it’s just a matter of turn on your 3DS
and put it in your pocket or put it in your bag and you can StreetPass wherever
you’re going.

NWR: Awesome, that’s really cool. So, you guys
recently launched the StreetPass relay station through Nintendo Zone locations.
Why was a six StreetPass limit chosen for each Nintendo Zone location instead
of 10.

Bill: That is a very good question. It was a
deliberate decision as well. Obviously we launched the StreetPass relay
function back in early August and certainly with the launch of that we saw an
uptake of traffic at Nintendo Zone in general. The other thing that we realized
that, just because of, as you mentioned, a difference in population density
between the US and Japan, even with Nintendo Zone there were locations where we
weren’t seeing as much traffic as we would like at individual locations. We
also felt that as great as it is to be able to go and get a StreetPass
connection at a Nintendo Zone, when that green light comes on and you only have
one or two connections it’s a bit of a letdown so what we want to do is give
people an opportunity, particularly for those folks who maybe were finding that
at their local Nintendo Zone they weren’t encountering the connections the were
hoping for, to be able to give them more opportunity to be able to get more
connections.

The number six was chosen specifically because we
wanted it to be enough that if you went there and, in the process of going
there with your 3DS and going to the Nintendo Zone and connecting, you didn’t
connect to anybody else via StreetPass you still got a good number of
connections that would make it worth your while to go in and do Puzzle Swap and
do Find Mii and play the individual StreetPass games. I think everyone can
agree [they are] a lot more fun with more connections at one time, but at the
same time what we didn’t want to do was suddenly make it so that you were no
longer getting any native StreetPass connections with the people that you were
passing on the street. We do think that that’s still a very important aspect of
what StreetPass is.

NWR: Okay, cool. So does Nintendo have any idea of
the amount of StreetPasses that have taken place on the national or even the
global level?

Bill: Particularly at Nintendo Zone we’re able to
get a look and see sort of how many people are connecting at Nintendo Zone and
we haven’t we shared any numbers publicly and my hope is that maybe if we have
a lot of people who show up this weekend for National StreetPass Weekend, what
we can do is take a look at those numbers and see what we can do with talking
more publicly about how many people are showing up. Now what we have seen is
that there’s a couple of things going on and one is we have definitely seen an
increase in Nintendo Zone traffic in general since the original relay points
launched and also as we got into September and October and we upped the number
of connections to six and then we started distributing content at Nintendo
Zone. We’re definitely seeing an uptake in the traffic there and we’re also
noticing that there’s certainly some seasonality to it as well and that as kids
are going back to school or maybe people are getting busier in the fall,
they’re not StreetPassing perhaps as much, but then as we’ve gotten into the
holidays, particularly with the launch of Pokémon X and Y, and also with Black
Friday and the shopping season we’ve seen a big uptake there with a lot of
people really engaging and StreetPassing with one another. So, part of what
we’ve tried to do is really focus in on what kind of activities are people already
doing and when are they doing it. How can we sort of align the things that
we’re doing at Nintendo Zone, whether it’s content, distributions that are
aligned to software launch dates? With National StreetPass Weekend, how can we
kind of do it in a way that it ties in to what people are already doing on
their own time? And then it’s just a matter of adding the 3DS to what you
already got planned, rather than having to go out of your way to create an
opportunity to StreetPass.

NWR: Awesome. During the weekend, how frequently
will the StreetPassers saved at each Nintendo Zone location be allowed to sit
there, pick up more player data? How frequently does that refresh?

Bill: Essentially each Nintendo Zone location
counts as a single StreetPass connection, for example if you’ve got other folks
in the office that you can connect with, it’s about an eight hour break between
the last time you StreetPass with them and the next time that you StreetPass
with them, but what works with each of the Nintendo Zones is you can just go to
Nintendo.com and we’ve got a page there on Nintendo Zone, so if you type in
your zip code it’ll bring up a map and show you where your local Nintendo Zones
are and then what you can do is hit multiple Nintendo Zones and each individual
Nintendo Zone counts essentially as a single StreetPass hit. So if you go from
one to the next to the next, then you can kind of string those together and
fill up your StreetPass that way.

NWR: Very nice. So do we expect StreetPass Weekend
to be an annual thing or is there plans to incorporate this weekend multiple
times during the year?

Bill: We haven’t really quite decided. We wanted
to give it a shot this weekend and kind of see what we can do around it. We
have a lot of ideas in terms of how we can continue to use Nintendo Zone for
big events and promotional type activities. We’re also looking at the
possibility of doing it not just on the National Scale but, as you mentioned,
on an international scale, and so then we’d be looking at what are the right
weekends that make sense for everyone globally, and how can we get people
excited about StreetPass on a regular basis and still find some unique ways to
use this functionality to allow you to fully connect with others in your local
area or across the county or across the world.

NWR: Okay, cool. Does Nintendo plan to ever take
advantage of 3DS StreetPassing for, say, Wii U titles? Like in the sense of
maybe downloading an app from the Wii U to the 3DS that has data from Wii U
games and then when you bring your 3DS home you can send that data back to the
Wii U. Is there any plans for something like that?

Bill: Nothing that we got in the works right now
although it’s definitely an intriguing idea. I think where we’ve obviously been
putting our focus more recently is in bringing Miiverse to Nintendo 3DS and
allowing that sort of to serve as an extension of the Wii U experience on
Nintendo 3DS while also bringing some of those community features of Miiverse
to Nintendo 3DS software. Personally, I think there would be a lot of
opportunity then to see what you can do from a StreetPass and Miiverse
perspective, but there isn’t anything that we’re working on right now. But I’m
sure there’s a lot of ideas both internally here at NOA as well as back at
Nintendo in Japan.

NWR: Alright. So, when the 3DS first launched,
there were only about two different StreetPass games in the Mii Plaza. There
was Puzzle Swap and Find Mii, and since then we’ve seen games such as the
Monster Mansion and Mii Force. How have those games been received both from a
sales standpoint and a general reception?

Bill: Yeah, they’ve done really well certainly
from a sales standpoint, particularly in Japan, but also here in the US and in
Europe. To be honest, one of the driving forces behind a lot of our StreetPass
promotion was the fact that when those games launched, a lot of us at Nintendo
found that, having the benefit of being at Nintendo and surrounded by folks
with 3DS systems, we were StreetPassing every day and as a result of that, when
those games launched, particularly the DLC games, we all found that we were
spending a whole lot more time playing our 3DS systems through these StreetPass
games than I think any of us had anticipated and it was because when you’re
StreetPassing with that many people that frequently those games become a lot of
fun. So what we wanted to do through Nintendo Zone and through the StreetPass
relay points was really try to bring the fun of Warrior’s Way and Mii Force and
Flower Town and whatnot to a much broader Nintendo 3DS audience in the hopes of
really helping everybody who owns a Nintendo 3DS, to make it easier for them to
understand why StreetPass is so much fun and how these games can be a really
fun experience.

NWR: Cool, so can we expect maybe more StreetPass
Mii Plaza games in the future?

Bill: Well certainly even before the release of
Warrior’s Way, and the other StreetPass games, we’ve had updates of Find Mii
and we’ve continued to kind of update Puzzle Swap with new puzzles as well. The
teams in Japan are constantly thinking of what they can do to take advantage of
StreetPass. There isn’t anything else on the horizon right now for new
StreetPass games, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s somebody who’s
thinking about it. Certainly I would like to see more because I’m still having
a lot of fun with Warrior’s Way even though I’m on my second time through it at
this point.

NWR: That’s cool. I’m actually kind of curious
about the different translations for the StreetPass games. While the kind of
general gist has been intact there, sometimes some huge differences between
let’s say, the American English and PAL region English of the games [exist].
Some games, like Mii Force especially, have two distinct personalities for each
of the cast of characters. Was this a product of two different English speaking
branches each translating from Japanese or did one branch get the other
region’s translation and kind of edit it from there?

Bill: You know, our localization teams, they
actually do sometimes work in tandem, where one side will translate from the
Japanese into English, sometimes at NOA and then NOE will edit, sometimes NOE
will do the translation into English and then we’ll re-edit it. Then there are
times when, because of our launch targets or timing, both sides will be
translating it from the Japanese originally into English at the same time and
working sort of on their own version. I hate to admit it, but I actually don’t
recall what the situation was on these games, but based on your description my
assumption is that maybe they were being worked on simultaneously on opposite
sides on the world.

NWR: Gotcha. I think we’re going to close out the
interview, but one last question. So potential 3DS owners, they don’t have a
3DS yet, they're probably just getting one for Christmas, what would you say to a
new 3DS owner about the best way to experience StreetPass, the best way to jump
into that world?

Bill: That’s a really good question, and I guess a
few things. One is, I’ve found that whenever I go someplace where I know
there’s going to be a lot of people, I just bring my 3DS with me, and sometimes
I do really well and sometimes I may not get as many hits, but there are places
that genuinely surprise me. One of them, me being a big skier, that surprised
me is ski resorts. I find that when I bring my 3DS with me skiing, I almost
always get hit from a good four or five, sometimes even ten people over the
course of a day. So for me it’s partly just, if you’re going someplace where
you know there’s going to be a large number of people, and it could be maybe a
sporting event, it could be skiing, it could just be to the mall, throw your
3DS in the bag and bring it with you and see what you get.

The other is, if you happen to live in a smaller
town or a more rural area, take advantage of Nintendo Zone because what we’ve
done with Nintendo Zone and the StreetPass relay points there, some of the
enhancements we talked about like bumping it up so you’re getting six
StreetPasses out of each time you visit, some of the enhancements we haven’t
talked about, but what we’ve done is we’ve looked at the Nintendo Zones that
aren’t getting as much traffic and then we’ve grouped them together so that
even if you’re going to one Nintendo Zone, it’s technically connecting its data
from other nearby Nintendo Zones so ultimately you’re able to go to any
Nintendo Zone and really get a good chunk of data every time you visit.

The other thing that I would also suggest is in
addition to StreetPass Mii Plaza and the games there, like Warrior’s Way and
whatnot, also don’t forget about games like Mario Kart, Super Mario 3D Land,
New Super Mario Bros. 2, and even Fire Emblem and Kid Icarus Uprising because
every time you go to a Nintendo Zone, you’re also able to pick up individual
data for each of those games as well. So a lot of times what I like to do is
I’ll go to a Nintendo Zone and I’ll go back through and I’ll kind of power
through some of the older games that I haven’t played in a while just to see
sort of who I’ve come across and StreetPassed and what kind of data I’ve picked
up.

NWR: Awesome, thank you so much for your time. I’m
definitely looking forward to this StreetPass Weekend, I am a StreetPass fiend,
so this going to be awesome. Thank you for the interview and thanks to everyone
at Nintendo for setting this whole thing up and I hope you have a good day
Bill.

Bill: Thank you, I will definitely be out
StreetPassing as well, so even if you’re not in Seattle, you know, good luck
and maybe you’ll find me on your system.

Thanks to Bill Trinen and NOA for speaking with us!

Talkback

A.) When we're given a Mii from SpotPass ("Gold Pants" Miis), we get a message that they're from SpotPass. It'd be cool if there was some way to tell if a Mii is from a real StreetPass or from a Relay.

B.) Please consider raising the 10-Mii limit in Plaza. Ironically, Crush 3D has 99 slot for StreetPasses and I've NEVER gotten an organic StreetPass for that game. :(

I second the request for raising the Mii Plaza limit. I imagine the reason for it is still based in the original idea of streetpass, that people in large Japanese cities would get some passes every day and gradually make their way through the games, and the games themselves are designed and balanced to use up to ten miis at once. So if you're in that kind of situation the 10 limit isn't that big of a deal.But if like lots of Americans if you don't live in a giant city and are lucky to get a few passes a week and use the relays to actually get passes in large chunks the 10 mii limit is amazingly irritating. I might go to the mall (which has multiple Nintendo Zones) and hit a couple of Starbucks on the way once every week or two, if that. And of course I want to hit as many zones as I can while I'm out to make the most of it, but that means sitting down and clearing everything out multiple times, and that time really starts to add up, *especially* with the new batch of games. I don't understand why the extra Mii data can't just be stored in 10-mii batches. If you do the 20-Mii trick and welcome the first batch then go into sleep mode while you get more passes and another batch lines up outside, it tells you that you have people waiting for you. So why can't it just store the data in those batches, and when you welcome in your first batch it immediately tells you you have another batch waiting, and when you're done with the first batch you go deal with the second, and so on and so on. There of course has to be some reasonable limit, or maybe a time limit before the miis get bored waiting in line and go home or something. I'm in no way shape or form a programmer or engineer, but something like that can't be *that* hard to implement (unless it actually is...)

Not sure how much control the employees have over the zones, but it's possible they could've done something to it this weekend.

Mr. Trinen, I doubt you're reading this but 3DS-owning Canadians would appreciate it if you worked out an arrangement with Tim Hortons to put Nintendo Zones in the stores. They're more common in Canada than McDonalds are in the United States (per capita).

This could potentially be the most awesome interview that has ever graced this site. Were the awesomes and cools evenly distributed or was one of the trio using them more than the others? ;)

But seriously, I read the whole thing. It was certainly insightful and ya'll asked some good questions. I particularly like the suggestion of 3DS Streetpasses having an effect on the Wii U. Was the interview done by phone or email?

And the fact that they combine Nintendo Zones in various small towns and rural areas was good to know.

This could potentially be the most awesome interview that has ever graced this site. Were the awesomes and cools evenly distributed or was one of the trio using them more than the others? ;)

But seriously, I read the whole thing. It was certainly insightful and ya'll asked some good questions. I particularly like the suggestion of 3DS Streetpasses having an effect on the Wii U. Was the interview done by phone or email?

And the fact that they combine Nintendo Zones in various small towns and rural areas was good to know.

Thanks! The interview itself was conducted over the phone one on one. The rest of us just helped with transcription.

This could potentially be the most awesome interview that has ever graced this site. Were the awesomes and cools evenly distributed or was one of the trio using them more than the others? ;)

Haha, I was hoping no one would notice the over-abundance of me saying that. This was done over the phone, and I was the sole person talking with Bill. I guess Kim and Justin, who transcribed the interview, decided to keep those in.

the 10 Mii limit is exactly what made me give absolutely NO shits when I upgraded and got an XL. It is a complete pain in the ass to constantly add these people to your roster, especially when you're at a high-traffic event like a game or anime-related con. If you're worried about allowing people to play Find Mii, all you gotta do is say "you can only take 10 at a time" or etc etc, any other million things a designer could come up with.